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Oxendine gets advisory opinion as probe of $120,000 continues

June 23 (update) -- Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine (right) may be personally off the hook for accepting $120,000 in campaign funds from two Alabama-based political action committees, according to language in a new opinion from the State Ethics Commission.

But the opinion does not directly address the amount of the contributions, which may have far exceeded limits set by state law. A separate investigation on that issue is pending.

The ethics commission on Monday posted an advisory opinion to clarify whether elected regulators such as Oxendine may accept campaign money from people or businesses that are associated with entities that his office regulates -- such as an executive or a parent company.

State law prohibits insurance and small loan businesses, which Oxendine regulates in Georgia, from giving money to a candidate for insurance commissioner or, in this case, his campaign for governor.  Similar restrictions apply to contributions to candidates for state labor commissioner, agriculture commissioner, attorney general, school superintendent, secretary of state and Public Service Commission.

An associated person or company -- if it is not itself regulated -- may give money to those political campaigns, the commission ruled. They may not, however, make that sort of political donation if they are acting on behalf of a regulated entity.

In the case at hand, reported May 10 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, two Rome, Ga.-based insurance companies gave $120,000 to 10 different political action committees in Birmingham, Ala., in 2008. The PACs turned around and gave $120,000 to Oxendine’s campaign in checks dated either Sept. 25 or Dec. 31.

Oxendine has said he did not know the money originated with the insurance companies. Oxendine returned the contributions after the news story broke, he said, “out of an abundance of caution.”

Under the ethics commission’s opinion, a candidate may assume a donation from a political action committee is legal unless he knows or should have known that a regulated entity was the original source of the money. That language was inserted at the request of an attorney for the Oxendine campaign.

The opinion does not address the size of the Alabama PACs’ donations. At the time, Georgia law prohibited donations of more than $15,300 from a single source to a candidate’s primary, runoff and general election campaign. The Ethics Commission is investigating a separate complaint that the $120,000 in donations exceeded that limit.

Oxendine still waits on advisory opinion on $120,000 in gifts

June 17 -- Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine will have to wait another week or two for guidance on whether he may accept campaign donations from political groups funded by companies that he regulates.

But his lawyer persuaded the State Ethics Commission today to consider adopting language that could defuse much of the fallout from Oxendine's acceptance of $120,000 in donations funneled through 10 Alabama-based political action committees.

The commission put off a vote on a proposed advisory opinion until that clarifying language can be reviewed. Oxendine's campaign attorney, Stefan Passantino, asked for the opinion last month following a news story that the 10 PACs, all funded by the same two insurance companies based in Rome, Ga., had given the $120,000 to his campaign for governor.

A draft of the opinion, as outlined by staff attorney Tom Plank, distinguishes between donations by a regulated entity, such as an insurance company doing business in Georgia, and a parent company or political action committee that is not.

A regulated entity in Georgia may not give campaign money to an elected official over an agency that regulates the donor. (Those so-called "elected executive officers," or EEOs, include the commissioners of insurance, labor, and agriculture, the secretary of state and the five members of the Public Service Commission.)

But Plank's draft opinion says the law does not prohibit such gifts from a parent or affiliated company that is not regulated. A political committee that accepts funds from a regulated entity could also make such donations, under the opinion, if it could show that the money used for the donation did not originate with the regulated entity.

Passantino asked the commission today to take a step further, letting candidates off the hook if they accept such money unless they have reason to suspect the donation is improper.

The language might read something like this, Passantino said: “Unless an elected executive officer has some reason to believe that a PAC is contributing funds transferred or generated by a regulated entity, the EEO is entitled to presume that funds contributed by a PAC were not transferred or generated by a regulated entity.

“If, however, the EEO has reason to believe that such funds were generated by a regulated entity, the EEO is advised to obtain necessary certification from the political action committee that it can account for all funds received [from] a regulated entity and that all contributed funds originate from an unregulated source."

The commission asked its staff attorneys to work with Passantino to see if they could draft language on that point that would be acceptable to both sides.

Incorporating those conditions in the advisory opinion could help Oxendine's campaign resolve a pending ethics investigation into the $120,000. A complaint alleges that the source of the money and the size of the donations violate state law.

In 2008, Georgia law limited donations from a single source to a statewide candidate to $15,300 for a primary, runoff and general election. (The amount was adjusted slightly this year for inflation.)
  
  

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